Bottom Lines and In Betweens
by Luna Rapunzel
Summary: Puck's in jail, Quinn's lost, Artie's in hell, Finn's sure he's going to hell, and most of them just wish that everything were as simple as it was last year again. Ensemble fic, spans Duets. Kurt/Finn, Brittany/Artie, Tina/Artie.


**Bottom Lines and In Betweens**

**puck** He spent all his summer savings on a vasectomy-he had to refund his bank account _somehow_. (At least, that's what he tells anybody who asks. When his cellmate's out cold and he's lying awake on his rock of a cot, waiting to fall asleep, he allows himself to admit that maybe he _wanted_ to end up here-that maybe having the girlfriend and the baby he never even wanted ripped away from him was just too _much_, and juvy was the only way he knew how to get away.)

**kurt** And as Finn's chasing him around the cafeteria being straightforward and harsh and _hurtful_ for the first time since he called him a fag, the best he can do is dismiss it as homophobia and load up his plate and refuse to admit that Finn's right. He knows he screwed up last year. He knows it. He even knew at the time that Finn would never be his, and even now he's starting to doubt that Sam's really gay after all, but it just gets so _lonely_, and sometimes his fantasies spill over and he acts a little desperate, and he _knows_ that, and he doesn't need Finn or anyone else to remind him of it. Don't any of them know what it's like to have a weakness that they're ashamed of?

**sam** He can't deny that it's a bizarre conversation to be having in the shower, of all places, Kurt rattling off an explanation that sounds like a breakup speech as he thanks God that Kurt's gaze hasn't dropped below eye level so far. But even though it means his reputation is saved and he's free to pursue that hot cheerleader, Quinn, after all, he can't help but feel a twinge of regret as Kurt's calling him out on his color treatment and sauntering away. In his world, he keeps his word-he owes that to the glee club, especially after he skipped out on auditions the first time around. And the thought that he can't even give Kurt that because of the pressure the kid's under-he doesn't know Kurt well, but he knows enough to know that it wouldn't be fair to anybody.

**tina** It was all so much easier a year ago, when everything was clean-cut and socially stratified: Cheerios here, football players there, Kurt and Mercedes and Artie and her _here_, Rachel clinging to whoever will accept her. Then Mercedes joined the Cheerios and Artie joined the football team and Kurt joined the Cheerios _and_ the football team, Finn started wheeling Artie to his classes, Finn and Rachel somehow became the it couple of the club, Quinn wanted Mercedes to be there for Beth's birth, Brittany started kissing losers, and Brittany and Santana have apparently been kissing each other all along, and she can't help but think that it was all so much _easier_ when they all sat at opposite ends of the cafeteria and only ever mingled when they were singing. So when she's having problems with Mike, you can't blame her for asking Artie to partner her instead, can you? Can you?

**mr. schue** He really should have thought this through better before giving a duet assignment to an odd-numbered group of kids.

**quinn** When she said she wanted to find a way to torture Rachel, what she meant was that she wanted to find a way to _want_ to torture Rachel like she used to. She had a _baby_. And it was terrifying and beautiful and heartbreaking to give her away to Shelby, and all she wants is to want the things she used to want and have the things she used to have, but she's started to care about people. She doesn't know how to care about people.

**mike** Maybe they won't be needing Asian couples therapy after all.

**brittany** That time she told Kurt that she'd have a perfect record after kissing him-that was back when she believed that Artie was a robot. (Jewfro doesn't count-he's more hair than human, anyway.) She should have learned her lesson with Kurt, but a perfect record doesn't mean a hell of a lot when the guys end up heartbroken and all she ever wanted was Santana, and kissing all the boys in the world isn't going to change that.

**santana** Quinn's downfall is that she doesn't have it in her to be heartless, not after what she went through with Finn and Puck and the baby. She knows she's a bitch, and she's just enough of a bitch that she doesn't care, and that's why she knows she's going to win this one.

**artie** He misses Tina-sleeping with Brittany was never going to change that. But lashing out at Brittany after the fact wasn't going to change it, either.

**mercedes** When Artie tells her (half-sobbing into the phone) about his realization that Brittany used him for his voice, she can't help but think that Santana did the exact same thing to her, just like when Puck dated her to get his popularity back last year. Only difference is that Brittany and Artie both meant well at the end of the day, and she's just as much of a bitch as Santana, isn't she, to use and be used and _like_ it?

**rachel** She loves Finn, and she loves that she's with Finn. She does. But then she looks at Kurt and remembers when Quinn was the one who had Finn, when she and Kurt were just a couple of hopeless second-bests giving each other sad waves across the hallway, and it's enough to make her ask him to sing with her, her first _truly_ hundred percent selfless act of the week.

**finn** He watches Rachel and Kurt's duet and fights to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. He did Sam a favor this week, maybe, but he sure as hell didn't do Kurt any. The kid's dad just got out of the hospital, and he didn't pray to Grilled Cheesus for him once; they're supposed to be on their way to becoming stepbrothers or something, and he's never even properly apologized for that-thing-he-called-Kurt-in-his-basement. Sam was in the shoes he wore last year, so he assumed that Sam would feel just like he did and value his reputation above all-enough that _he's_ the reason Kurt sang solo this week, _he's_ the one who feels safest to have prevented the inevitable homophobic torment from Karofsky and Azimio. Rachel says that he's her inspiration, but he personally doesn't see how he's good enough for that, not when Rachel reached out to Kurt before the idea ever even occurred to him.

**matt** The next time he calls, Mike tells him all about the duets they did in glee club, how Tina made him sing for the first time, how Finn and Rachel seemed to have rigged it so that Quinn and the new kid could win. He wonders who would have sung with him if he'd still been at McKinley. He wonders if anybody would have thought to ask.


End file.
